What goes around, comes around
by ElliQuinn
Summary: Written for Australian and New Zealand POI fans to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing. John and Harold met long, long ago... Complete.


**This story is written especially for all Australian and New Zealand POI fans on the centenary of the Gallipoli landings, April 25 1915. Heroism comes in many forms, and I wanted to draw a connection between our POI heroes and the real-life heroes of the Australia New Zealand Army Corps (Anzacs) who fought and died on the Gallipoli peninsula a hundred years ago. I hope you like it. **

It was hot. That was the first thing he noticed when he woke up. The second thing was the blinding, grinding pain which ran red-hot fingers from his neck right down his back and into his hip. Hit. Hit badly. He groped at the back of his neck. Blood. There was still rifle fire and shrapnel coming down from the dusty heights up above, though he was lying in a slight dip in the ground which gave him a little shelter. Harold tried to scrabble his way backwards, downhill, in the direction of the Anzac lines. The pain roared up and he nearly passed out. Another bullet smacked into the dry earth right by his head. He realized his tin hat was gone, though his spectacles were still there, by some miracle.

He was very thirsty, and there should have been a canteen somewhere about, but he couldn't get a hand to it. And the flies had arrived, drawn to the blood. Their triumphant buzzing was loud in his ears. Or was it inside his head? Loud enough to drown out the rattle of rifle fire and the burst of mortar shells. Hot. It was very hot. And he was shaking with cold, how funny. But never mind, he was going to sleep now.

Someone was whistling. A man can't even have a quiet kip on the battlefield but some bastard comes along whistling a cheerful tune and disturbing things. He could feel a field dressing going onto his neck, a bandage being pulled tight around his neck and shoulder.

"Come on, mate. Let's get you up." Strong hands gripping him under his arms, pulling him into a sitting position. "Can you get your leg over here?"

Harold blinked his eyes open. There was a stretcher bearer and a patient little donkey standing there, right out in the open with Turkish bullets kicking up puffs of dust only a few feet away. A big man, black hair and blue eyes, seemingly unconcerned at the noise and the danger.

"Come on, mate," the man repeated. "The Gallipoli Express is leaving from platform seven." As he spoke he shifted his grip and got a shoulder into Harold's armpit. He heaved and got Harold up and across the donkey's narrow back. The pain was indescribable, and Harold passed out. When he came to he was astride the donkey, held there by the man's arm across his back and feeling every lurch and footfall as they made their way down a narrow path. He could still hear the sound of the fighting up on the heights, but the gunfire and explosions were muffled now. He realized he was safe. Well, safer, anyway.

It was still hot, but there was a whisper of a breeze coming in off the Hellespont, visible through a gap in the hills. Then gradually as they made their way downhill the gap closed and the blessed breeze died. He started to fade out again. As he slumped against the big man's shoulder he heard a voice. "Hey. Mate. What's your name?" He blinked awake again. Tried to remember and at last came up with "Harold."

"That's a good name. I've got an Uncle Harold."

The buzzing of the flies got louder again. No, hang on, it couldn't be flies. He groped woozily at the back of his neck. The field dressing. He slumped again, the buzzing getting louder and louder.

The voice. "Come on Harold, sleeping on duty, what are you thinking of?" A gentle shake. Of course, it would be easier for the stretcher bearer, and quicker too, if he could stay conscious and upright. Harold blinked again and tried to stay awake. Just then they came to a halt as a half squad came climbing up the path. They crowded against the hillside to let them past. A couple of the boys – and they were just boys – eyed Harold and his bloodstained dressing uneasily. He realised that he was part of a continual stream of casualties trickling down from the ridge and being replaced by an equally continuous stream of men going up.

"Do you have any water?" he asked the man.

The stretcher bearer merely nodded and passed him a half-full canteen. The water was warm and tasted of metal, but he drank steadily. "Not too much," said the man anxiously. "You can have some more in a minute."

Harold nodded and hissed with pain as the motion jarred his neck. They began walking again. "What's your name?" he asked, since it seemed polite.

"John," said the man. "And this is Murphy." He gave the donkey an affectionate pat between the ears. The little beast huffed and shook its head, small hard hooves pattering on the compacted dirt of the track.

"So where are you from, Harold?"

"New Zealand. Canterbury."

"Ah. I was born Tyneside myself. But I've lived most of my life in Australia."

"What do you do? Did you do, I mean. Before all this?"

"Oh, this and that." Plainly John didn't want to talk about it. "You?"

"I'm a farmer."

"Yeah? What d'you farm, Harold?"

"Sheep. Up in the hills."

"You must love this place then," said John. Harold tried to turn his head to see if he was joking, but the pain was like a red-hot bayonet and he stopped. Another halt while more men climbed past them.

"I miss my dogs," Harold found himself saying.

"Tell me about them," he heard John say in reply.

He tried to collect his thoughts. "My best one's a huntaway. You know what huntaways do? They move the sheep by barking at them. He's a big brown fellow with a white patch on his chest. He can just go all day, take a mob of sheep from the top ridges all the way down to the shearing shed plodding along behind them going 'Woof. Woof. Woof.' I hardly even need to whistle him, he just knows what to do. He's a grand dog, is Bear."

Another gap opened up in the hills: the sea closer now, the breeze a little stronger.

"Not much further to the beach, Harold," said John. "You might be seeing Bear sooner than you think. Across the Straight to Channakale, then Egypt, then home, eh?"

A wave of gratitude pierced through Harold's numbness. "I don't know how to thank you for coming to get me, John," he said. "Maybe some day I can repay you..."

"No need to, mate. It was just my job." He could hear amusement in the other man's voice.

"No it wasn't," he disagreed. "You didn't have to come right out into the open to pick me up. You could have waited for nightfall." Those moments in the harsh sun, bullets pinging around them as he'd been woken and levered upright replayed themselves in his memory.

In the corner of his eye he saw John shrug. "Sooner or later this job'll get me killed," murmured the big man. "But what's the point in worrying? When your number's up, it's up."

"Still," Harold persisted, "after this is all over, maybe we can meet up. I'll buy you a drink." He could see a little smile, just a twitch in the corner of the man's mouth.

"Yeah. Maybe we'll meet up one day, Harold. Maybe we will."

_A/N: John Simpson Kirkpatrick and his donkey Murphy rescued many Anzac casualties over a three-and-a-half week period from the first landing at Gallipoli on April 25 1915 until his death on May 19. __An Australian __c__olonel wrote of him: "__Private Simpson and his little beast earned the admiration of everyone at the upper end of the valley. They worked all day and night throughout the whole period since the landing, and the help rendered to the wounded was invaluable. Simpson knew no fear and moved unconcernedly amid shrapnel and rifle fire, steadily carrying out his self-imposed task day by day, and he frequently earned the applause of the personnel for his many fearless rescues of wounded men from areas subject to rifle and shrapnel fire."_


End file.
